It’s a clever argument, and I’m sure it will convince many weak minds. I have to wonder whether Adler and Krugman are also convinced of what they write.

What they have done is basically redefined the term “fact” to be anything that Liberals believe is an established fact.

I’m going to set aside their examples of creation-vs-evolution, or the optimum marginal tax rate, or whether conservatives only want smaller government but liberals want improved social welfare. Instead, I’ll just get to Adler’s central claim that there is no liberal equivalent to “climate change denial”.

Of course there are liberal equivalents. For example, here are seven that immediately come to mind:

1) natural climate change denial

2) denial that coal and petroleum work better than unicorn farts as fuels,

3) denial that a small amount of warming is better than killing millions of poor people by restricting access to inexpensive energy,

4) denial that the human-induced component of climate change is anything but catastrophic and an emergency,

5) denial that an increasing number of scientists are becoming skeptics,

6) denial that IPCC scientists were caught red-handed trying to silence the opposition and “hide the decline”,

7) denial of the observations, which show much less warming than any of the climate models can explain over the last 30+ years.

I’m sure I could think of more, but I don’t like to waste any more time than necessary answering such silly claims.

For supposedly being able to understand nuances, these guys can’t admit that most conservatives really do believe that humans have some influence on climate. We just don’t think the scientific and economic evidence supports spreading more misery around the globe than liberal policies have already created.

Chuck, I shop at whole foods market. (It’s VERY expensive…) I also live in a red state where 9 of 10 white people voted for McCain over Obama. I don’t see too many people of color shopping at whole foods. You do the math…

Yes, the same tired old canards get dragged out by geniuses like Paul Klugman. Well here’s my canard: Like all liberati they know what is good for everyone but yet know nothing and learn nothing. Throw a trillion dollars down the economic toilet and get nothing for it? Well, the reason it failed is that it was too small. Right. The only thing too small is their intellects.

The first error is to call any of these people “liberals”. Not only they frequently act in direct opposition to the term (e.g., this very situation) but would not be able to define liberalism to begin with.

I would add…The LEFT’s blind faith (there is no scientific basis) that Big Government is capable, competent, and cost-effective in regulating the climate, controlling global temperature, avoiding extreme weather, reversing climate change, and growing money on trees.

Clever argument in what way? Basically, Adler is saying that conservatives cannot admit that catastrophic global climate change is imminent, because in that case they would be forced “to take action”. How is that different from: liberals cannot admit that anthropogenic global warming is far less of a problem than they have always assumed, because that would mean that all their efforts so far were a gigantic waste of money, funds that could have been put to better use elsewhere.

But of course, for those like Adler and Krugman, who possess the truth …

Honestly, do you really think liberals care about wasting money and funds? Do they even care that all the money and resources in the world cannot move the needle on controlling the climate and regulating global temperature?

Liberals love spending other people’s money and controlling our lives. That’s the entire point of liberalism.

Here is a list I made up a while back:
Hey climate denier!
Why do you deny that there has been no statistically-significant warming since 1995?
Why do you deny that the rate of the current warming is statistically indistinguishable from earlier warm periods?
Why do you deny that Minoan, Egyptian, Roman and Medieval times were probably warmer than recently?
Why do you deny that CO2 follows, not leads temperature.
Why do you deny that H2O causes much more greenhouse effect than CO2?
Why do you deny that 95% of the annual CO2 emission is from nature?
—
Why do you deny that the glaciers retreated FASTER in the 1930s than recently
Why do you deny that the current ocean rise is within historical norms.
Why do you deny that solar cycles are a better fit to climate than CO2?
Why do you deny that manís CO2 has never been proven to cause dangerous warming?
Of course the reason is that if you admit any of the above, you admit that there is NO EVIDENCE that manís CO2 is causing dangerous global warming.
Why are you anti-science?
You guys are illogical throwbacks to the dark ages of emotional anti-science.

IPCC …were saying – ……. that they:
DENY the existence of the Medieval Warm Period;
DENY that fact that there was a Roman Warm Period,;
DENY the Minoan Warm Period Data;
DENY the fact that warming occurs BEFORE the rise in atmospheric CO2.

Absolute rot that Global Warming scientists deny your claimed denials. Your web site is a wing nut job on science. Aussies mainly ignore you and NEVER visit your web site. Now onto the spat. Boy oh boy what a hack job Roy – this latest thread. I really think you are nothing but a hacked up bitter and twisted old conservative with just a pinch of seasoning from good old fundie Christianity. Throw in one PHD and your a expert at everything. You are getting worse with old age.

RossBrisbane:
Ok now we have established you live in Brisbane, Australia.
I’m afraid you are certainly wrong on a few counts.

You obviously have visited. So have I and even Doug Cotton Ė a fav of Dr Spencer. We are all from Oz!!! I’m sure there are plenty of others who visit. So you are wrong here.

As to denial of a Mediaval warm period I suggest you consult Drs Mann or Marcott. Plenty of denialism there. The IPCC went along with denying it for a long time and has never issued a retraction. Plenty of denialism so you are wrong here too!

Ross, just to let you know most of us who visit here have real science or engineering backgrounds and we appreciate Dr Spencer’s thoughts and insights. Most of us foster Richard Feyman’s approach to science. Anything else is just Ė well rather quaint science.

Sounds like you follow Dr Mann whose science approach is that ďproofs are for geometry and maths!Ē He believes that as long as one feels his idea is sound then that is all that is needed. It’s a sort of personal type of special science or science advocacy or post normal science. Feynman had a special name for it too; cargo cult science!

I’ll just allow Nature put it to you this way, climate researchers are in a street fight with those who seek to discredit the accepted scientific evidence, and we must fight back against the disinformation that denies this real and present danger to the planet, “The worst thing we can do is bury our heads in the sand and pretend that climate change doesn’t exist.” I see DISINFORMATION from horizon to horizon on this site daily.

I can speak for those in Melbourne that find, even on BOM data, no evidence of man made global warming. Things may very well change in Australia now that that Government sponsored “research” will diminish. Its a credit to the general population, that despite this bombardment of selective and contradictory reporting and misinformation on this “CO2 alarm”, by far most of the population have not been deceived. The numbers of the gullible few will diminish in number as the years go by and temperatures remain unchanged, or even decrease. Fortunately, natural warming and cooling cycles cannot be influenced by those with vested interests.

“Iíll just allow Nature put it to you this way, climate researchers are in a street fight with those who seek to discredit the accepted scientific evidence, and we must fight back against the disinformation that denies this real and present danger to the planet,”

This reminds me of suicide bomber who say God is Great- Allah or whatever.
If God is great why does he/she/it need these stupid people who kill people. Obviously it requires vain attempt at imagining they are important.
Why would God need such misible and diseased idiots to do the dirty work.
Obviously it would be the Devil they are serving as the devil could actually need some assistance by these people willing to be immoral.

Anyhow the real climate researchers are not in a street fight.
We got idiots like Michael Mann who simply incompetent and a coward. To confuse that idiot with a scientist is to confuse Stalin for an enlighten political leader.
And then we Al Gore who does even understand high school science and is obviously an incompetent politician, that found himself elected vice President who was unable to convince Bill Clinton that global warming was a problem.
Al gore is obviously a dumb disgusting pig.

So I yet to see any of these real climate researchers engaged who support CAGW. We have the hollywood types [clueless] and we get the funny drunk CNN founder:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54
There is no one one call vaguely serious who supports this nonsense. Unless one thinks a wannabe King of England, is not merely nuts.

The only serious climate researchers, are people like Roy W. Spencer, Judith Curry, and etc.
Who might be called lukewarmers and they may attempt support idea there is some scientific value to greenhouse effect theory. Or at least try to focus on what is most important- there has been no significant warming at least for the last 15 years.

At least Al Gore when saying it would be over in next 5 years [saying this about 10 years ago] was right. This fraud and the big money to be made is now basically winding down.
Even the Germany people who had a lot faith in the nonsense are recovering from their madness. Whereas Everyone else has been seeing global warming as low priority.

I would say it was combination of more accurate satellite measurement, and China emitting twice as much as the US in terms of CO2 emission which been the major nail in this coffin. As anti-chinese is not a glorious as anti-American- and so the fun is gone.

You attack Dr. Spencer’s post as a “hack job”, but you don’t even recognize what he said.

You begin by asserting that “Global Warming Scientists” don’t “deny your claimed denials”. Now, as others have pointed out, many of them do deny some of the claimed denials. But Dr. Spencer was not talking about Global Warming Scientists. He was clearly talking about liberals.

The post states: ‘Iíll just get to Adlerís central claim that there is no liberal equivalent to ďclimate change denialĒ.’

You see, it is all about liberals, yet you missed that. Perhaps you think all Global Warming Scientists ARE liberals?

No they don’t. There is even an Atheist movement that respects life from the time of conception. As for Getting closer to the subject: Even true believers in the resurrection of Christ still understand that Global warming is real and the science on it is correct and that all world governments need to take urgent action. Bringing religion into a political arena of whether you are liberal or conservative is not what Jesus taught. I respect the conservatives who stand their on ground against the mounting witch hunts by the Tea Party advocates of whom Roy Spencer may be one extremist. Conservative men and women command my highest respect when they stand against the circles of powerful faceless men destroying science based on on unhistorical political ideology and extreme policies of Government non-intervention. Like in the case of Tea Party blocking relief monies – Hurricane Sandy. [Years of Living Dangerously Part 3)

The blue line is the global temperature from 1960 to the present. The orange line is a temperature record starting around 1912, but shifted in time and up.

The orange line is supposedly totally natural.

The blue line is supposedly all man made warming.

This shows that the temperature rise in the late twentieth is not unprecedented, and to me is sufficient to say the AGW theory is wrong and that CO2 will not cause catastrophic warming.

Not only is the rate of warming and the period of warming virtually identical, even some of the higher frequency changes (that I supposed were just random walk type changes) are virtually duplicated in the two time periods. The similarity is quite astounding given the AGW hype.

It is simply unbelievable that natural causes are attributed to the rise in the early 20th century, but AGW to the late 20th century changes.

(The data was taken from the Woods For Trees site – but as you can’t shift data in time I had to cut and paste the data to Excel.)

The change in temperature in the late 20th century is nearly exactly the same as the change in temperature starting around 1910, including the higher frequency changes.

The slope of the change, the period, and the eventual plateau are nearly identical (especially if the current plateau lasts another 15 or so years).

There is no need to invoke AGW as it has all happened before, and at a time when the accuracy of the measurements taken are sufficient to be confident of the comparison between the two time periods.

AGW is not needed in order to understand the changes, as the IPCC itself acknowledges the temperature changes from 1910 on are natural, and so it follows that natural causes were at work in the late 20th century as well.

The trend line is dramatic. Statically significant. I suggest one thing here – you just cannot eye ball a chart and draw conclusion. However the graph clearly shows a drop of natural variation and the over riding clear effect of some factor beyond natural variation. That is the CO2 signal that is indicates global warming. Its not cosmic rays or sun increased brightness or volcanic activity.

It appears that since end of Little Ice Age or for about last 150 years, there has been rise of about .1 C per decade on average. And over last 36 year is been continue of about .1 C per decade.
It seems likely in the next 86 years we probably will get less than 1 C increase in average temperatures.
Or it possible we will continue to recover from the Little Ice Age for the next 86 years.
Though a lot people are seem to be predicting temperature may decrease until about 2020 to 2030, so maybe less increase by 2100 or returning to temperatures of Little Ice Age.

Have you climate change liberal wing-nuts ever heard of a “nuclear summer”? No? You’ve probably heard of “nuclear winter” right? You would have us believe that adding crap to the atmosphere makes the climate warmer but when mother nature adds crap to the atmosphere we all know THROUGH EVIDENCE that the Earth gets cooler. Particles in the atmosphere don’t have the ability to react based on who puts them there or what political party they belong to. Yet you still keep pushing this clap trap story about a warming “green house” effect. In reality, adding stuff (h20, CO2, doesn’t matter) should result in cooling.

Sorry, I probably lost all you liberals on that line of thought. You have to be able to understand AND accept emipiracle evidence to understand what I just wrote. This is a BIG problem for most liberals: they’d rather see what they believe than believe what they they see.

The debate is over? Ha! You liberals don’t want a debat because you will lose the debate.

Rossbrisbane, sure I would be interested to get your take on the graphs. A link perhaps?

Kenny, I’d like to explain my point, but I’d really like to keep this at a level that doesn’t go “flame thrower” style. As a devil’s advocate to where (I think/guess) you are comming from, I’d like to reconcile this: while it is widely accepted that when volcanoes erupt & when nuclear bombs detonate, the result is often or could be refferd to as a “nuclear winter”: less sun light reaches the surface and there is less radiation that can re-radiate. The Earth cools. The atmospheric layers of pollution (or even not pollution: H2O) reflect radiation equally from all directions. As a result, less total radiation reaches the surface.

I could get into climate cycles but I’m more interested to hear your take on what I wrote above.

Not that’s not a Dr.Spencer’s mistake.
Even if you (dishonestly) can average the simulated data with the measurements average to get the reference, doing that you deliberately give the simulator (CMIMP5 models) the false capability of matching the measured temperature, which they don’t have indeed.
I’m not a scientist, just an electronic engineer, if you are a scientist and you don’t understand what I wrote here above is mush better you change your job.

The graph clearly shows everyone what one can do when incorporating different sources of data. The graph is CORRECTED and Roy Spencer is MISREPRESENTING or made a MISTAKE on the sourced data. Plain and simple. I can post more those on how this mistake then follows through the ending graph. But I won’t do that at this stage.

Ross,
IMHO Dr. Spencer just tried to validate the models collection averaged in the CMIMP5 and check if they have some kind of predictive capability, which they don’t have at all.

He doesn’t misrepresented anything, for what I can see, he just correctly averaged the references and the simulations independently, and positioned the anomaly curves according to those two averaged values (one for the two measured data sets and one for the models under validation).

That’s absolutely correct because he doesn’t know if the measured UAH data set is better then the measured HadCRUT4 data set or viceversa, so he averaged them together to get a better estimate of the reference absolute temperature.
He doesn’t included the CMIMP5 in that average because if he did it, the models change the reference absolute temperature, voiding the model validation process.

I also seen the BruceC suggested link about that graph, and the author of that blog seems to have no idea of what a model validation process is. Remember that the models don’t have to predict the temperature anomaly, but the absolute temperature.
These are my points about:
1) Dr.Spencer didn’t shifted up CMIMP5 modeled data set, he just correctly placed its anomaly shifted by the difference of the model averaged absolute temperature minus the measures averaged absolute temperature.
2) he didn’t shifted down the UAH measured data set, he just correctly averaged UAH and HadCRUT4 together trying to reduce the measurement errors.
3) the CMIP5 and CMIP3 means vs GISTemp graph is a nonsense because the measuring methods from 1880 to early 60’s were laughable. This is a good example of deceptive graph indeed.

About your “If half the Christian would remove their conservative blinders [I have] Ė they would see that much criticism of the global climate Science is wasted oxygen”
This is a typical nonsense that doesn’t means a thing, most of the scientists who made the fundamentals of climate science (which should be physics and not statistics) were Christians.

Robert, You well may sit comfortable in your seating at church. I do not. If half the Christian would remove their conservative blinders [I have] – they would see that much criticism of the global climate Science is wasted oxygen. The person holds a degree in agriculture science. Lets be more honest then what you have been and stop be disparaging on the author.

I do not understand why people even respond to posters like Ross Brisbane because It allows people like him hijack the conversation. I have gotten to the point that I have started to collect their “handles” and filter their conversations and the responses to those conversations.

Well said CC! I hate reading anything I don’t agree with. When I read the comments on some blog, I want to only hear opinions that are just like mine so that I feel justified for having them. It makes me feel smarter. Isn’t that the whole point?

Well said CC! I hate reading anything I donít agree with. When I read the comments on some blog, I want to only hear opinions that are just like mine so that I feel justified for having them. It makes me feel smarter. Isnít that the whole point?

Honest skeptics? Not sure what you mean. I am honestly skeptical. And I honestly don’t need to hear what liberals say. This is no place for liberals. Why do you think Roy takes his precious time away from climate science to bash liberals? If you don’t want to feel smarter, then read Doug Cotton’s book and leave us alone.

Gunga, Ross McKitrick is a signatory to the Cornwall Alliance’s Evangelical Declaration. This evangelical statement supported also by Christy holds to some very questionable Christian theology.

Christy also also supports some very questionable findings by McKitrick as found in the PDF congress document. So far there appears to be fundamental flaws in their graphing NOT dissimilar to mistakes made by Spencer. There appears to be too much Evangelical fervour intermingled with Conservative political bias overlaid on the climate science.

Robert, You well may sit comfortable in your seating at church. I do not. If half the Christian would remove their conservative blinders [I have] they would see that much criticism of the global climate Science is wasted oxygen.

Someone said “then after the wall came down greenpeace was flooded with ex communists and peace activist. They took over greenpeace and instead of focusing on real problems they now focus on political agendas and then find the “problems” to promote it”

Amazon has a Kindle edition. He goes in detail into the drivers of the current climate hoax including Marxism’s early association with environmentalism, the Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth”, Maurice Strong, Agenda 21, the corruption of the IPCC et al. A great in depth look at the current crisis which includes a call to all who cherish freedom and our way of life to get off the couch and get involved in saving what’s left of liberty in the world.

Dr Spencer, I have had a question bothering me for some time concerning CO2 driven global Warming. When I first became aware of the AGW controversy, I came to it with an open mind. I tried to sit down and make this work in my own mind. I kept running into a problem, a problem, I think you can put to rest for me.

My training is in Chemistry. This is my question. When a photon of IR radiation at an absorption wavelength of CO2 hits a CO2 molecule and excites it, isn’t it impossible for that photon to be reemitted at the same wavelength it was absorbed? I say this because it would seem to me that if the radiation were reemitted at the same wavelength, it would be impossible to get an IR spectrum of CO2. In as much as an IR spectrum of CO2 is possible it seems that reemitting at the same wavelength is impossible.

If I am not mistaken in the above, then it would seem that IR radiation after its first absorption by CO2 would necessarily be reemitted at a wavelength other than an absorption band for CO2 and would continue unimpeded to outer space, absorption by other atmospheric components set aside for the sake of simplified argument.

If you could put this to rest for me I would be in your debt. Thank you in advance.

AFIK molecules like CO2 which exert narrow absorption bands at a given pressure, re-emit photons at the same rate and wavelength when they are thermally in equilibrium.

Regular transmittance (which is what the satellite spectrometers measure), give the spectrum of the radiation which pass through the medium unchanged in strength and direction. In the case of CO2 narrow band absorption, the photon is re-emitted at almost the very same wavelength it has been absorbed, but it is scattered over the full spherical surrounding angle of 4pi steradians.
This scattering is seen by the regular transmittance detector as a “bite” at the molecular resonating frequency indeed.
What I don’t agree instead, is that the spectrum measured that way is representative of the effective outgoing radiation.
IMHO, to performing an effective outgoing energy radiation measurement a satellite should have a diffuse transmittance spectrometer instead.
If a diffuse transmittance spectrometer having the field of view wider enough to see the whole Earth disk will be used, then we could see the effective outgoing energy spectrum for the satellite nadir.
Until that day, after a due calibration, that spectrum is useful just to know from where the radiation is coming at a known ground temperature.

Thank you for your reply.
Not sure if my question was understood, or perhaps I misunderstand the answer.

“In the case of CO2 narrow band absorption, the photon is re-emitted at almost the very same wavelength it has been absorbed, but it is scattered over the full spherical surrounding angle of 4pi steradians.”

If I am running an IR spectrum on a sample, how can I get an absorption band at three micro meters if the sample is simultaneously emitting IR at the same frequency?

Ray,
With an isolated molecule like CO2, IR is absorbed and emitted only in specific narrow wavelength bands. These are determined by permitted quantum energy levels of the C-O bond. When an IR photon is absorbed, most likely that energy is distributed internally or rapidly to other atmospheric molecules via kinetic collisions, rendering that C-O bond unable to emit IR at that level. Similarly, that CO2 molecule may later gain energy from kinetic collisions and now be able to emit an IR photon of that energy. Such photon emission is random in direction.

Since IR absorption is due to dipole moments and twisting, vibrating single and double bonds, the same frequencies can be emitted if due to slamming into another molecule causes the same twist, wiggle, or vibration. Is that about it?

Hi Ray,
“Or are you saying that enough will be re-emitted in directions the detector cannot see, and I am measuring the small difference between the total IR between the sample and reference beams?”
Precisely, sorry for my English, it’s not my first language and I know I write it in a very bad manner.
For an example (not pertaining gases but liquids), if you take a sample of clear water and you put a laser source on one side so that the laser beam can pass through the sample and place and on the other side you place a detector, the detector read a certain value. If you put in the sample few drop of milk so that the sample water became a little turbid, the detector on the other side read less than before, but the difference between the two values is not wholly back scattered, in fact if you look at the other sides (the ones parallel to the laser beam), when the sample is full of clear water you can’t see anything, while when the water is turbid because of milk you can clearly see the laser beam passing through it.
The same happen at the detector side, in the case of clear water sample you see a dot of the size of the laser beam, while in the other case of the turbid milky water you see the same dot surrounded by a less intense circular area. That area is measured in diffuse transmittance analysis only, the regular transmittance analysis miss all those energy that exits anyways from output side of the sample.

About Don point, I agree with him that the spectrum can be built up also by energy sharing with the surrounding molecules by collisions.
In fact I wrote my previous post about CO2 molecules only, not mixed with other gases and in thermal equilibrium; that is I supposed a very same photon-in photon-out rate for each molecule, which is the way spectrography should be done to get significant results.

Anyways, as always I say, I’m not a scientist.
I’m just an electronic engineer who, in this case, had the experience of having designed an optical spectral analyzer using a monochromator for the near infrared, visible and ultraviolet bands.
What I write here are just some considerations of mine, about my own direct experience, I’m not an expert in spectrography

Ray,
Think of the C-O bond as a vibrating spring that can only have certain frequencies (periods, energy values, whatever). (This is of course very, very over-simplified.) When that CO2 absorbs an IR photon, the spring starts to swing more widely (higher energy). It can transfer some of that energy to the other C-O bond, or it can strike an N-N or O-O molecule (or even another CO2) and transfer some of that bond energy to it. That reduces the spring-bond energy, so it can not emit an IR photon with the energy it originally absorbed. That C-O bond is more likely to transfer that extra energy than immediately emit another IR photon because in air striking another molecule occurs several orders of magnitude more frequently than IR emission time. Now some time later that CO2 is struck at that C-O bond by another molecule (any kind) having higher energy. (Remember, different molecules in a gas have a distribution of energies, so some have more and some less than average.) That C-O bond regains enough energy that it can now emit an IR photon, and it MAY do so or lose that energy again. This slow-down in that original IR photon getting to space produces warming, just as donning an overcoat on a cold day slows heat loss from your body and your skin warms.
This help?

Hi Don,
I agree with you, I would ask you what’s your point of view about that the CO2 molecule at rest is not polarized, while the water vapor molecule is polarized instead.
I mean:
1) consider the water vapor molecule at rest, it looks like a V shaped cluster of atoms which easily can be charged by collisions because it suffice two simultaneous collisions to the two H atoms to bend the V structure and charge it.
2) consider now the CO2 molecule which being one line shaped (O=C=O) instead needs three collisions to be charged, i.e. one collision must happen to the C atom and two other collisions must happen, one for each O atoms both in the opposite direction respect to the C collision.
3) When charged, both the molecules can release the charged energy the same way just through two collision, because both are now V shaped.

In my point of view this should make the CO2 molecule more an IR to thermal converter than viceversa even at thermal equilibrium, while the WV molecule should behave more like a theoretical GHG.
If I’m right about that, in lower troposphere I suspect that the CO2 molecule works better as an air heater than a ground surface heater

Massimo, (also Ray)
This reply is to your comment below.
Several factors can influence the polarization of a molecule, including bond angle (as you say), electronegative difference between atoms, and in the case of CO2 the fact that C contributes two electrons to the bond.

Basically all bonds have vibrational energy (so-called v-levels) transitions that typically absorb and emit in the IR. V-level energy changes require an oscillating charge movement, i.e. a change in dipole moment. N2 and O2 don’t have dipoles (and only symmetric vibration modes) and so don’t have these energy changes. CO2 qualifies and has a symmetric stretching mode, an asymmetric mode, and two bending modes. I think it is the asymmetric mode that produces much of the photon energy transfer.
H2O, not being symmetric (as you point out) has slightly different modes and thus energy requirements.
CO2 and H2O also have different types of rotational energy transitions (so-called J-level), which although much lower energy, give some flexibility to specific energy required for V-level transitions.

Psychologists are now studying the growing phenomenon by which our society and its members make up their mind on an issue before gathering facts. This leads to Confirmation Bias, whereby these individuals only seek out “facts” to support their position and ignore other facts. No scientific debate then follows because the other side obviously has no rationale for its argument. Rather insults are lobbed.
Members on both sides of the warming debate practice this.

I for one consider myself to be a climate change skeptic – human influences on the climate are real but so are natural ones. I have serious doubts about climate models and I have these doubts because as an economic modeler I know very well how important parameter selection is to model outcomes. I also know well how clients, particularly government clients, have a particular result in mind when they commission work and if your model doesn’t produce the desired result, it will be as if the modelling never took place.
But I am not a conservative, although I’m not quite sure where I live on the political spectrum I am quite sure it would not be on the conservative end. It is annoying that too many people think that by knowing a person’s opinion on one topic allows that person to be fully categorized.
Finally, Adler seems to be of the view that climate change skeptics ignore the facts, I like to think we examine the evidence.

The thing that is so wrong to me to me with the left’s perspective on climate is the statement that the models properly address solar variability. There is so much uncertainty about the sun’s influence and there are no feedbacks tied to solar flux or long term solar load in the models (the impact of a long term solar max like we just exited is potentially greater than a shorter term active phase). Socially I have major issues with their dogma also, but it is to taboo to share them so I won’t.

Now let’s flip it and be an equal opportunity critique. The right concept that capitalism will solve everything is very dangerous. Efficiency and long term sustainability should be encouraged even if it harms short term profits. No, i am not talking about shifting to solar and wind on the back of some co2 tax bc it does not add up it can not work- it is not an alternative energy option. However, let’s face it the us politicians are cowards. For example, why shouldn’t people pay taxes on gasoline that subsidize mass transportation. It is so wasteful to see every other person driving a gigantic vehicle on the interstate, and for what? Bc they were born a little less of a man then they desire. Ohh no i understand its for the once every 5 years they move or do some yard work project… No logic. Plus, something like 30,000 people die annually on US roads… It is absurd not to resolve this issue. Everytime i read about some health risk i laugh… Why isnt this a big deal. If this many people died for any other reason the culture would not accept it… Its crazy to me. Also, Exponential population growth in a closed system (like our planet) with fixed resource density is a path for destruction…. Subsidize less children and birth control and perhaps even penalize people who reproduce outside of their means… Oh but i guess that is not gods plan? I’m sure god wants people to reproduce until the point they can not sustain… We were given a big brain for a reason. Short term thinking based on revenue and belief will harm us in the long run just as much as liberal ideals trumping reality.

“I feel awkward giving this conclusion because it seems so relativistic, it makes me feel like such a social scientist. And I certainly donít want to say that all racial arguments are equally valid. The theories of the book under discussion, for example, seem much more plausible than various crude racisms of the past. But that returns us to the paradox that todayís racism seems plausible in comparison to what came before. At any given time, racial explanations are a convenient and natural way to explain social economic inequality. Then, as relations between and within societies change, the racial explanations change alongside. The terms of race are simply too flexible given the limited information we have regarding the connections between genes and behavior”

These ideas have been there since the book the bell curve was written. It is just taboo to speak of them in society. The recent discovery of cross breeding between Neanderthal and denisovian with parts of the human lineage but not others blew out of the water the strongest liberal rebutal of the concept (by stephen j Gould) that there was not sufficient time to be genetically different. Note, as the article and book suggest, this theory could never be applied to the individual… Only has any sort of validity at the population level. However, being fired for statistics is a scary reality of our culture.

People are being fired, chastised, financially ruined, in other words – Punished – for having thoughts, aloud, which are not in line with the leftist, lockstep agenda.

I first ran into this personally in college, when at the tender age of 20, in the early 70’s, I was so bold as to offer differing views than others. Even then the left had already been taught to denigrate those who disagreed with them.

Today, Chuck Shumer offers to change the first amendment, in order to make legal the restrictive actions he already actively pursues.

Rossbrisbane says: Aussies mainly ignore you and NEVER visit your web site. As an Aussie who regularly visits this site all I can say is “Wrong again Ross”. Maybe you should make that your handle. If the science of AGW is so settled, there would be no need for the BoM to falsify the records to hide the inconvenient truth that natural variability is the dominant factor in climate change.

Bruiser, Sorry, I should have addressed the person concerned. This was NOT relation to Roy Spencer’s web site. This was ADDRESSED to Geoff Brown’s Sceptic Web site in Australia. It is in support of a strange political party called the Climate Sceptics Party. A rag tag team of Agnostics and Christians with some extreme views about race etc based in Australia. We have cult like movements in Australia just like America. I never narrow down and double down my support on any scientist or Christian organisation. I draw from hundreds if not thousands of those scientists, balanced theologians and economists that are a very broad “church” within a global community. I would not be classed as as liberal or a conservative. Rather I dare ponder and always question and abhor the development of what is well known as sectarianism. It lives here on this site. It exists in the political. It exists within the churches. It exists within the science of denial. It exists within economists. I fear for your country. You are not “liberals” or “conservatives” – you are a nation founded under God where ALL men are EQUAL before God. There is an over riding trend in Roy Spencer to label and place badges on his own fellow country men. We see from our perspective faulty data being represented here as factual data. He does not listen. We hope one day he will.

Many confuse graphs from Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1999) with graphs of a tree ring based proxy by Keith Briffa which has never received the prominence of the MBH graph.

In Briffa’s tree ring data, some of the data sets show a decline in tree ring width and/or density after 1960, and hence are not a good proxy for temperature after 1960. There is good reason to think they remain good proxies for temperature prior to 1960, however (although some dispute that).

In contrast, the data from MBH, comes not just from tree rings but from a variety of proxies. Further, the tree rings used in MBH 99 do not show any decline after 1960. In other words, there was no decline to hide in MBH 99. “Hide the decline” has nothing to do with MBH 99 except that MBH’s results have been published alongside Briffa’s results in some publications. Some denier’s have, of course, deliberately fostered the confusion which Roy Spencer is exhibiting by mentioning the ďhide the declineĒ conspiracy and continuing the disinformation of it.

So Roy Spencerís accusation that scientific data has been used to mislead is misplaced. The “misleading” here is purely a result of developed contrary arguments over the Climategate stolen emails taken out of context on the ďhide the declineĒ phrase within the email. The confusion on the issue and the deliberate fostering of that confusion by other leading deniers [of the real truth] is something the main stream media has never corrected.

“Mann et al did not merely delete data after 1960, they deleted data from 1940 on…”

Mann clipped off the offending data and spliced in real data. He also eliminated the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, even though the IPCC had shown them clearly in the 1990 review.

IMHO, they are all in on a cover up, including the IPCC. When MBH98 disappeared quietly off the IPCC radar to be replaced by the infamous spaghetti graph, not a word was offered in explanation. The IPCC quietly moved the data range from 1000 AD to 1850 AD which coincided with the ending of the Little Ice Age.

Why has the LIA been so conspicuously absent in IPCC peer review? Global temps were up to 1C below normal in the pre Industrial Era when the IPCC claimed warming began due to anthropogenic causes.

The 1C they have claimed since is nothing more than we would have expected from a world recovering from a global cooling episode. Along with the recovery, glacier would have been expected to shrink.

Gordon, I appreciate how Labor in Australia moved workers rights forward – Socialist Christian Democracy. Back to global Warming: I know for a fact that Steve McIntyre is NOT entirely all objective in his assertions. What we need is to get these contrary researchers and scientists like Spencer and Chesty in an open session with those thousands of scientists and have a no holds barred conference and astute presentation to sort out the DENIAL accusation mess. Maybe we could just learn a few things from both sides. We need the will to start doing something to make a better future for our CHILDREN’S generations. To put it bluntly: The time for politics on this is well and truly over.

@rossbrisbane…”I know for a fact that Steve McIntyre is NOT entirely all objective in his assertions”.

Ross…I have been following Steve and Ross McKittrick pretty closely since they are both Canadians. Their theories re Mann have been under rather tight scrutiny from both the US National Academy of Science, which is definitely not objective, and an expert in statistics, Wegman.

The outcome of the investigation into MBB98 turned into an AGW circus. Bradley of MBB came out and accused Wegman of plagiarism. Why plagiarism? If you have proof that the guy was wrong as a statistician then charge him with that. But charging him with plagiarism is nothing more than a desperate attempt to force him to withdraw his findings.

Wegman backed up M&Ms findings on MBB98 and NAS did half-heartedly after reprimanding Mann for using pine bristlecone as a proxy for the 20th century. They also told him he could not claim 1000 years of unprecedented warming.

Wegmann took a swipe at the entire IPCC Working Group 9 of which Mann was a part. He claimed they were nepotic in the way they cited only each other on climate issues.

I know Mac is hot and bothered about what Mann did but I don’t see what he has done that would make you claim he is not objective. Are you sure you are not getting your info from tainted sources?

Why don’t you go after the Climategate investigation into Phil Jones if you want a total lack of objectivity? It was McIntyre who forced his hand by going after a Freedom of Information request to the UK government in order to get at Jones’ data. What was Jones hiding, that he and his band of alarmists, including Mann, had to hide behind secret emails?

When they held one of the phases of the Jones hearings they excluded McIntyre even though he was the expert on the misdemeanors of Jones. Instead they brought in some guy who had no idea what was happening.

Mann is nothing more than a geologist who is in way over his head. He left himself wide open to criticism when he used statistics to make his claim about unprecedented warming in the 1990’s. It just so happens that M&M are experts in statistics and they caught him. Otherwise we’d still be hearing from Gore about unprecedented warming.

After MBB98, Mann got involved in another rash claim, that Antarctica had warmed over the past 50 years. One of the stations he used as evidence turned out to be under 4 feet of snow. As far as I’m concerned, Mann just takes one foot out of his mouth and inserts the other foot.

I think he’s a comedian.

As far as getting Christy and Spencer into a debate with alarmist scientists, that’s not going to happen. UAH is holding all the cards. They have proof-positive based on real data that little or no warming has occurred in the past 33 years. Alarmists have tried to discredit the satellites but their objections are pathetic.

The IPCC and the alarmists don’t want to debate them. Years ago, when realclimate and NASA alarmist, Gavin Schmidt, got into a two-panel debate with Richard Lindzen (3 debaters per side), he refused to be drawn into a direct debate with Lindzen. It would have been fatal for him. Instead, he referred viewers to the realclimate site to get information there.

If the general public saw such a debate it would end the anthropogenic theory right there. Without the media bombarding the public with abject propaganda in favour of the alarmists the debate would have ended long ago.

If you are concerned about your kids, you should be over-joyed that the anthropogenic theory is losing credibility. The satellite data has proved conclusively over 33 years that the atmosphere is not sensitive to anthropogenic CO2.

Adler would have a lot of trouble with me, I am a socialist. Right wingers like to lump all socialists in as alarmists.

When I use the term socialist, I am not referring to Russian and Chinese style communism. Many people like to associate the two but they have nothing in common. The Bolsheviks who eventually started the communist dog’s breakfast wanted nothing to do with Russian socialists and even Marx wanted nothing to do with them.

Engels suggested they call their dogma socialism but Marx refused. Marx had grown up in Germany where socialism was regarded as handouts from the wealthy to the poor.

Socialism began in democratic countries like the UK, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. It was a workers’ protest movement about lousy working and safety conditions perpetuated by the creed that Roy seems to support. I don’t think his heart is totally into it so I forgive him.

I don’t think this anthropogenic warming pseudo-science is related to any particular political party or belief. Here in BC, Canada, we have a political party that is right of Attila the Hun, who have implemented a carbon tax. The joke is that they take money from schools and hospitals and pass it on to private organizations. Sort of a reverse Robin Hood situation.

Heck, even Attila Schwarzeneggar is into the AGW religion. And please don’t tell me Al Gore is a Liberal. His claim to fame in his 8 years term as VP was examining hard rock recordings for Satanic messages with his wide Tipper. You can’t get anymore paranoid-Conservative than that.

Gordon, I suspect you are as uncomfortable as I am that in the USA scepticsm of the CAGW hyposthesis seems to be so heavily tied in with being politically “conservative”.

I am sure there are lots of liberals, libertarians, social democrats and socialists out there who are equally sceptical. An ability to look objectively at the science and evidence is possible whatever ones politics.

In fact the maker of the UK Channel 4 documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” was a very left wing socialist and associated with the “Revolutionary Communist Party” (not to be confused with the Communist Revolutionary party …splitters!).

Tipper may very well be wide, but I think you mean (ex)wife. Gordon Campbell used the promise of a carbon tax to steal votes from the NDP, and it worked like a charm. David Suzuki, the alarmist’s alarmist even supported him. This was long before the general public was on to the carbon scam. To it’s credit, the current BC government has scrapped the Pacific Carbon Trust, which, like every carbon trading scheme was riddled with fraud and anomalous effects as you have described.

PS For some amazing background on the Gore family connection to Soviet super-spy Armand Hammer read “Dossier” by Ed Epstein. There are excerpts of it all over the web. But I recommend reading the whole book, not just for insight into the systemic rot in the American system, but also to obtain a full realization of how the amazing arc of the life of a brilliant, determined, indefatigable sociopath has shaped much of our world.

…and of course not all of us sceptics are “Conservative”. I would call myself a “liberal” in the old English definition of the word. Closer to what in the US you would call “libertarian”. A libertarian in the UK is usually a rather unsavoury character little different from of an anarchist. What you call a “liberal” we would call a socialist or social democrat.

Divided by a common language…

I think in the UK there is a good tradition of being in favour of business, capitalism and the free market (and against state ownership, excessive regulation and interference) while at the same time being socially liberal and tolerant, in favour of free choice in matters of religion and sexuality and having the freedom to express those choices publicly.

IPCC Ďscienceí is based on “Forcing’, net energy transfer to Earth’s surface by solar SW and atmospheric LW radiation. Standard physics assesses both as the difference of ĎRadiation Fieldsí from ‘Stefan-Boltzmann’ equations. The IPCC does it differently.

The SW emitter is the Sun, 5,500 deg.K. The SW absorber, mainly the surface, is cooler but it still has a RF so net SW surface heating rate = Sigma(F1.T_sun^4 – F2.T_surface^4). Sigma is the S-B constant, F1 and F2 are parameters dependent on clouds etc.,Ts are temperatures. It comes to +160 W/m^2 (mean) ‘thermalising’. This heat transfers to the atmosphere as 97 W/m^2 convection/evapo-transpiration plus 63 W/m^2 real net IR emission, of which 40 W/m^2 goes to Space.

However, ‘Climate Alchemists’ assume 396 W/m^2 surface LW RF, the Ďblack bodyí level for 16 deg C, is a real IR flux when in reality itís the potential energy flux to a sink at absolute zero. Only the 63 W/m^2 is real. They make up the difference by assuming 333 W/m^2 LW RF measured by ‘pyrgeometers’ pointing to the atmosphere (‘back radiation’) provides extra surface heat when standard physics shows for a normal temperature gradient, an atmospheric RF can’t transfer any energy to the surface. This failure to understand what their main instrument outputs is a serious scientific mistake.

Adding the 97 W/m^2 convection makes 493 W/m^2, 3x the real heating rate, never proved experimentally. As it’s far too high they offset 238.5 W/m^2 by falsely applying Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation to the semi-transparent emitter at Top of Atmosphere. The residual c. 60% more heating than reality is, with 3x real GHE, used to purport imaginary ‘positive feedback’. They then use c. 25% extra low level cloud albedo in hindcasting to pretend the extra energy doesn’t heat the atmosphere above reality.

IPCC ‘science’ is nothing less than science fraud; manipulation of data to purport much more heating than reality. The GHG-absorbed IR component is exaggerated by a factor of 5.1. This scam deceived all but real heat transfer experts of which I am one.

Hazzah! I’m no expert, and my degree in Mech Eng was a long while ago, before all the hocus-pocus was taking root. But I think you nailed it.

Of the following I’m certain – there is no certainty in climate science/climate prediction. Chaotic systems defy prediction. You may potentially characterize them – we do now – and one day with enough computing power and accurate, validated, multi-physics climate models (we’re a long way from this) we may actually be able to predict a week or two, or perhaps a month or two. Any more than that and uncertainty (chaos) will certainly overtake the result. We can’t accurately predict the weather, how the heck can we predict climate?!

Add an “agenda” or “a religious belief” and you can get any scientific model to tell you just about anything you want it to, by the chosen parameters, coefficients, data and how it’s fit, etc..

No professional engineer or scientist able and willing to go back to basic physics (Maxwell’s Equations) accepts the Trenberth – Kiehl ‘Energy Budget’.

It’s time that IPCC modelling was brought under the control of people taught standard physics. US and UK Atmospheric Physics was corrupted by the bad mistakes Carl Sagan made when he devised his theoretical analysis of the Venusian atmosphere.

Eric…”We canít accurately predict the weather, how the heck can we predict climate?!”

There are scientists, like Pat Michaels, who use the tried and trued past climate history to predict at least near future climates. Comparing the predictions of Michaels to those of Hansen, using climate models, Michaels has been right and Hansen way off.

The IPCC has a penchant for using unvalidated models while ignoring real data because that’s how it was set up, by climate modelers. UK prime minister got the ball rolling and she recruited people like John Houghton, a modeler. Since it’s inception, the IPCC has been under the influence of virtual, unvalidated, science, if you want to call it science.

I am a socialist and a Liberal thinker and I DO NOT believe in cAGW. As an example of my social conscience I think Unions are the only way to preserve the middle class and the middle class is the definition of the “American Dream”. I DO NOT believe in cAGW, I DO believe in “Climate Change”, the climate has always been changing.

I have no idea why Ben Adler thinks Liberals are naturally capable of skeptical though, he certainly exhibits no critical thinking capacity when he confuses facts with opinions about data. Skeptical/critical thinking more naturally falls into the Conservative philosophy than Liberal philosophy.

I’ve also noticed my fellow Liberals fall easy prey to “Mediacracy” because of the natural lack of skeptical/critical emphasis in Liberal philosophy.

BTW I’m Canadian and was saddened to learn that the American middle class has fallen behind the Canadian middle class’s standard of living ūüôĀ

There is only one way to settle this. Get all scientists together and thrash out ALL the data over 1 month locking all the doors so no-one leaves to take pot shots. We would bar all political biased settings and debate based on party politics. Just the raw science of the matter. Liberal or Conservative scientist – thrash out the SUBSTANCE not the rhetoric. Then release to the press what you all are going to do about by developed policies. Regardless let it not fail based on sectarian economic lines.

A good idea, but the Thermageddonists would first have to take remedial courses in radiative and IR physics, also statistical and irreversible thermodynamics, with a good crossover to quantum field theory so they could understand the real science.

I doubt whether you, for example, have the depth of thermodynamics and quantum field knowledge (needed to go beyond Planck) to understand the real issues. If you had, you wouldn’t try to support the IPCC non-science.

Brookhaven National Laboratory has some good people but so far they have failed because they have assumed a grey body atmosphere. We engineers know a lot better!

Denialism is primarily a characteristic of the social/liberal as their focus is on political ideology which tends to be impervious to empirical argument. Religious conservatives can also be just as intransigent as religious or quasi-religious subjects are belief systems similar to political ideology.

Demonstrations of social/liberal denialism is probably posted up on a message boards a hundred times today –

Silly me, Will. I’ve just read literally hundreds of peer reviewed science. Silly me for not going along with Watts Up and Steve McIntyre. Your denial is rather telling. As a result of a five year investigation, I went from Climate will be fine to other side. Sorry if I’m seeing Global warming with my own eyes in my travels. Sorry that you had some bad seasonal weather your way. I have problem with ultra tea party kind of conservatives – really I do. They are at times ideologically driven in really bad ways. And that’s coming from an evangelical Christian.

The physics of the ‘Enhanced Greenhouse Effect’ is a juvenile error, easily proved from a century of real world experimental data, but atmospheric physics pretends it knows better.

In the absence of any other factor, there would be 1.2 K CO2 climate sensitivity because of a variation of the ‘Forcing’ argument. However, there is another factor which gives near zero CO2 climate sensitivity and there is substantial experimental evidence proving why.

Therefore, you are yet another of the great misled who hasn’t gone back to the original physics’ claims made by Sagan, Hansen, Ramanathan and Trenberth – they all made elementary mistakes and those left alive have for 17 years, about the period of no statistically-significant atmospheric warming, been keeping careers alive with fake fizzicks.

Ramanathan is however a good experimentalist and his mistake on thermalisation of GHG-absorbed IR energy is of no practical consequence because there is very little such energy!

You seem like a decent bloke, Ross, and I get your point. However, you are placing a great deal of faith in the IPCC, which is a politically-driven organization.

Do you realize that 50 lead authors write the Summary for Policymakers and that lead authors are political appointees? The IPCC has given them sweeping powers to re-write the main report based on the opinions of the 50. Where else in science to do you see such a carry on?

Also, the Summary comes out before the main report, then it is used to amend the main report. If that makes sense to you there is nothing more I can say.

The iconic notion that humans are causing global warming comes directly from 50 lead authors in the AR4 Summary, not from the main report. That comes from Richard Lindzen who is a professor at MIT.

The IPCC is grasping at straws right now and their supporters are creating science to explain the ‘hiatus’ in warming since 1998. One theory claims the missing warming is hiding in the oceans, although there is no way to prove that. Other alarmists suggest the IPCC did not really mean what they said about a warming hiatus.

It made no sense in AR5 when the IPCC admitted a warming hiatus since 1998, although I don’t think it is temporary, then increased their confidence level to 95% that humans are causing warming. You would think objective people would have reservations based on the 15 years of no warming trend.

Recently, we have been bombarded by science fiction from alarmists in deep denial over the IPCC admission. Today, on cbc.ca, there was an article from alarmists that a huge ice shelf in Antarctica is breaking up and they are making it sound like the beginning of the end.

The report is being driven out of the University of Washington which is the home of Stieg, who co-authored a paper with Climategater Michael Mann, claiming Antarctica has been warming for 50 years. One of the stations they used for evidence was found to be under 4 feet of snow.

Of course, that paper was peer reviewed. You have to understand that peer review means nothing in today’s politically motivated world of science. The Journal of Climate, till recently, was run by blatant alarmists, including Mann. He was caught in Climategate trying to block publication of papers from skeptics. What do you think the chances are that peer reviewed papers going through the JOC represent objective science?

Ask Roy about having his papers blocked at or before the peer review level. Peer review was never intended to be a censor, it was designed to keep laymen from publishing unproved rubbish. Today, in climate science, PR is used to prevent scientists from publishing.

Richard Lindzen, who has published over 250 papers in a distinguished 40 year career in atmospheric physics approached a publisher and asked why his papers were being held up. They told him he was being more heavily scrutinized due to his skeptical views.

Roy’s boss at UAH, John Christy, does not mince words. He claims, according to satellite data the past 33 years that there has been little or no warming.

John did his grad studies as a climate scientist under uber-alarmist Kevin Trenberth, who admitted several years ago in the Climategate email scandal that the warming has stopped. He referred to it as a travesty that his instruments could not detect the warming, inferring it was still there but they could not detect it.

John was educated in the AGW theory, but after he began working with sat data, he could not see the signature of global warming in the data. We are fortunate that he and Roy have had the guts to stand up and say so.

John has served on several IPCC reviews as a lead author and reviewer. What he has to say about the pro AGW mentality at a supposedly objective review is not flattering. Coming from someone else, I might suspect sour grapes, but John is such a down to Earth individual and I think he called things as he sees them.

“Royís boss at UAH, John Christy, does not mince words. He claims, according to satellite data the past 33 years that there has been little or no warming.”

Really? That would be a strange thing for John Christy to claim given that the UAH data set currently shows that since the beginning of the record, the warming in the lower troposphere has been 0.14 C per decade, which means close to 0.5 C in total over that time (http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt) Warming over land has been even faster, 0.19 C per decade…and, of course, this satellite estimate is not subject to any urban heat island issues.

Now, historically, it is true that Roy Spencer and John Christy claimed that there was no warming…even slight cooling when they first released their estimates in the 1990s. However, it turns out that the estimate has changed considerably since then, with about half the change in trend attributable to the longer length of the record and about half attributable to the correction of various errors in their analysis.

The above is another good example of denialism. The intentional confusion of equating bad weather with climate change. Since the accepted practice is to consider climate to be trends over 30 years or more, and trends are impossible to measure with one’s ‘own eyes’, this is a good example of a kind of ‘reality’ denalism. Again, very common if you a view a topic religiously, quasi religiously, or if you believe something is consistent with your ideological convictions.

Ted,
Average ocean pH today is 8.1. From 280 million years ago to today, ocean pH was lower (more acidic) than this, and over ~100-200 million years ago was about 7.6. That is 400% more acidic than today. Yet, the geologic record shows that limestone rocks are common, implying abundant shell-forming marine organisms thrived during this time.
Apparently they were able to cope with a more acidic ocean.

I seriously suggest right here regarding Ocean Acidic levels that we do NOT go to denier based selective information coming in turn from unreliable sources likes biased Heartland! The following [MORE ACCURATE] report EXPLAINS why abrupt oceanic carbolic action is dangerous to ALL oceanic life at some level. Quick abrupt changes like this over 250 years will cause mass oceanic extinctions of many species. http://coinatlantic.ca/docs/ocean-acidification.pdf

ross,
My source of paleo-ocean acidity is not Heartland. It is a review paper on the subject published in SCIENCE in 2012 by 21 authors.
“The geologic record of ocean acidification”
Science, vol 335, page 1058

For references to abundant limestone sediments over this time period, consult any textbook on sedimentology and/or palentology

Don, Sorry that study you quoted was used by Heartland! Is it any wonder your using it right here. WE are in great of huge oceanic extinctions my dear fellow. It is not me me driving the point. Read the report and stop your belief that nothing is happening. It is a belief that lies in the domain of climate denial.

RossBrisbane “I seriously suggest…that we do NOT go to denier based selective information coming in turn from unreliable sources likes biased Heartland!”

You are saying in essence that if Heartland publishes a paper by Roy Spencer or John Christy or Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton that it is to be discarded as denialist nonsense.

If you look at the impressive list of experts on the Heartland site, you will see the name of Syun Akasofu, an astronomer who did ground-breaking work on the solar wind. Akasofu does not deny there has been warming, but he holds the IPCC to account for ignoring the Little Ice Age.

The IPCC is always on about how warming began after the Industrial Era, as humans began emitting anthropogenic gases into the atmosphere in larger amounts. They use the pre-Industrial Era as their baseline.

They don’t tell you that the pre IE was in the middle of the LIA, when global temps were 1 C BELOW normal. Akasofu is claiming the 0.8 C anthropogenic warming claimed by the IPCC over the 20th century failed to allow for rebound warming from the LIA.

So, here we have an intelligent scientists giving an alternate explanation for warming but you are calling him a denier because he does not buy into the popular paradigm that it is anthropogenic gases causing the warming. You do that despite the fact their is not a shred of evidence to show how an extremely rare gas like ACO2 could cause all the climate havoc claimed.

Heartland has nothing to do with Akasofu’s opinion, they are nothing more than the messenger.

If you want to talk about propaganda and biased sites, try alarmist-central at skepticalscience. Respected climate scientist, Roger Pielke Sr., had to take SS proprietor, John Cook, to task for blatant ad homs against Roy Spencer and John Christy.

I agree with Gordon.
I gave the published reference for the ocean’s pH back 300 Myr, and I have the paper on my desk
If ross chooses to ignore that, he is demonstrating a good case of confirmation bias, i.e., only believing what he wants to believe and pretending anything else is not real.

NASA monthly data got released today, April came in as the 2nd warmest .73. As long as at least a weak El Ni√Īo continues, 2014 will likely be the warmest ever recorded. UAH will lag in its response to El Ni√Īo another month or so. The lag times according to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 are 5 months for RSS and UAH, NOAA is 2 months and NASA 4 I believe. It’s likely that the positive switch in the PDO is starting to influence global surface temps. Either way It’s going to be an exciting year for climate change and I don’t mean that in a good way.

Ross, with all due respect, CO2 makes up only .032 +\- percent of the atmosphere. It seems absurd to think that at that percentage it can weigh so heavily on the direction of our climate. The climate change we are experiencing is NORMAL and well within the highs and lows of the past. OMG! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

I used to joke to myself that politicians would “tax the air” if they could only find a way to get the populous to buy into it. The joke’s on me clearly, they have found the red hearing they were looking for.

rossbrisbane “It is within the law of physics that any PPM rises raise temperature of Climate”.

There is no proof anywhere for that idea in physics. The only proof available was conducted in a laboratory using densities of CO2 far higher than one would find in the atmosphere.

There is no doubt that CO2 molecular bonds absorb infrared energy and that process raises the heat of the molecule a smeckle. However, it has never been proved that the extremely rare density of ACO2 in the atmosphere can raise temperature noticeably.

Lindzen calculated that the effect of a doubling of all CO2 in the atmosphere would have an upper bound of warming at around a small fraction of a degree C.

The physics to which you refer is not physics at all but climate model conjecture. Modelers programmed ACO2 into a model as a forcing agent with no proof whatsoever. They have reasoned there is no other explanation. I call that mathematical speculation, not science.

Furthermore, they have given positive feedback properties to ACO2 that have never been proved in science. Besides the fact that the 2nd law of thermodynamics forbids such a positive feedback, modelers have programmed it into their models. Without that feedback, the models would begin projecting much more reasonable temperatures.

Gordon,
On some of these points I disagree with you. There is strong, observational evidence for CO2 absorption in the atmosphere, regardless of overall warming that produces. Here is some explanation.

Satellites looking down see into different depths depending on the IR wavelength. This is a technique used to monitor weather at different altitudes.
At wavelengths where H2O, CO2, or other gases absorb, the IR flux level is indicative of the surface (or very-near surface) temperature (cold in Alaska, warm in Guam). At wavelengths where CO2 absorbs (or H2O) the IR flux rate is much lower, and this flux rate gives the temperature of the last CO2 (or H2O) emission of IR. That last emission height is not from the surface, but from much higher up. This last emission follows other previous absorptions and emissions of IR deeper in the atmosphere. How high up for the last can be estimated from the known Temperature vs. height profile of the atmosphere. Typically it is above the surface by 2-3 miles, depending on the latitude and atmospheric heat content.

If one examines the absorption profile of e.g. CO2 in such spectra, one observes the center of the absorption occurs at a slightly different altitude. This is because the center of the CO2 (or H2O) absorption saturates quicker, in comparison to absorption on the edges. Satellites take advantage of this by shifting slightly away from the absorption peak and thus peering deeper into the atmosphere.

If you look up from the surface the reverse effect occurs.
At wavelengths where strong IR absorption occurs, the IR flux indicates a temperature slightly above that of the surface. That’s because you are seeing the IR emission from close to the Earth (one major reason we know it occurs), not the IR emission from much higher up that satellites see.

If you guys want to intelligently discuss climate change, learn some of the science. That’s what I did. Don’t just extrapolate from personal experience or personal bias.

“Besides the fact that the 2nd law of thermodynamics forbids such a positive feedback, modelers have programmed it into their models.”

When I teach my students about the Laws of Thermodynamics, I tell them that they are a double-edged sword: On the one hand, they are a powerful tool against pseudoscience like people who try to claim that they’ve discovered a perpetual motion machine. On, the other hand, like any powerful tool, they can be abused by people promulgating pseudoscience, like people who claim that the Second Law disproves evolution or that the Second Law disproves the greenhouse effect.

So, either “put up” by showing us the rigorous proof that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics forbids a positive feedback…Or, kindly stop talking nonsense that makes us physicists cringe.

Liberals do have an equivalent to “climate change denial” I call it human life denial. The discussions here do try to stick to the climate topics, but I believe in this case liberals that side with a “women’s” right to chose, chose to ignore many many things. I don’t think we should debate our points on abortion, but I just wanted to point out that as with Climate in the 70’s, prenatal science and understanding had improved exponentially. However, the liberal political platform ceases to budge on this issue. I see a correlation between the two topics in how they merge morality, natural rights and science. Both also have moderate positions, extreme positions, and rational positions on both sides. The main difference is that one actually affects human life instantly, while the other has “projected” and “estimated” effects on human life, and there is no chance that abortions aren’t 100% man made.

So yes, Paul Krugman and Ben Alder, there is a liberal “equivalent” to climate change denial.

Tribalism gone wild. It’s always funny what people come out with when they finally lose touch with all objectivity. My tribe == right, Your tribe == wrong; see how enlightened I am!
Funny. A little sad too.

Gordon, You are predictable. A straight down the line Climate Change Denier die hard. You bluster about being science based then post scientific rubbish about Linzden. Oceanic Spectrum (ph levels): Both papers concur that Oceanic Acidification regardless of its intensity from alkaline level to lesser alkaline (the term for ph level drift toward acid spectrum) affects sea life. A VERY SMALL shift in those levels in SHORT periods of time amplify the affect on marine life and can cause extinctions. They do not have time to systemically adapt in their environment. IT IS THEN NOT SO MUCH Heartland using peer reviewed papers but how they CHERRY pick the paper. You quote Linzden who has been found to be utterly up the garden path with his theories and assertions. IRIS theory – utter bunk.

Don, Get off your theoretical high horse and do OBSERVATIONAL confirmation of Climate drift. Evidence of Global warming is all around you.

Two extreme groups. One group probably doesn’t believe in evolutionary theory. The other sides claims to know more about the theory than even the theory tells you. They can tell you what can and can’t adapt, and even give you precise time frames.

Will, Not true. There are CONSERVATIVE Christians that hold to Old Earth Creationism as opposed to Young Earth Creationism and hence believe in adaptation [adaptive evolution]. The rise and fall of species over millions of years. I do not where Roy Spencer stands on this issue. He has failed to commit to anything along millions of years within the sciences. The earth is around 3-4 billion years old. The Universe at last estimate 13 billion years according to Conservative “OEC” Christians.

I’d say if someone imagines that “Evidence of Global warming is all around you” they are just another flavour of loony. Such people must imagine they can visibly see a 0.5 – 0.7C global temperature change that rose gradually over a century and for which a substantial portion of warming occurred in uninhabitable regions such as the Arctic, and where the warming — where it did occur — was primarily measured as a difference in range during the coldest part of the night. Still, if someone thinks they can observe such things with their own eyes, I don’t see any difference between them and Young Earth Creationists.

The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. I say about because the Earth did not form all at once, but over a period of at least 50 Myr.

There is indirect evidence that very primitive life has existed for 3-3.5 billion yrs. More complex life apparently did not emerge until after snowball Earth ~650 Myr ago, when even much of the ocean froze. Other sudden evolutionary shifts in life occurred after some traumatic event that cause extinction of a high fraction of species, such as occurred with the dinosaurs and some other life forms 66 Myr ago (an asteroid impact in Mexico) or 252 Myr ago (probably caused by volcanism), when most marine species went extinct. Perhaps humans are setting up the next evolutionary shift.

ross,
I agree that the Earth is warming and that a part of that is likely due to human produced CO2.
I also know that Nature over many millions of years also has warmed and cooled the climate by many different methods(as it did from 1910 to 1940).

What I don’t know is that climate scientists have accounted for all natural factors in their theoretical models such that only AGW remains. I strongly suspect not. There are likely ways the Sun and clouds influence Temperature not accounted for. (A small 1% error in Earth’s albedo because of clouds is worth 0.8 watts/m^2.) Model predictions of temperature are not tracking measurements very well of late.

Thus, I support some continued and measured effort to reduce the human CO2 footprint, if for no other reason that fossil fuels are valuable for several things and we are using them up too quickly.
What I do not support is the panic “sky is falling” approach to the issue we see from some today. This is not positive for their cause. Society could be damaged as badly from a rapid, thoughtless “remedy” that does not solve the problem as from the perceived problem itself. The US production of CO2 has been level for years, largely as a consequent of changes being made in energy efficiency and growing natural gas use. However, we have no control over the CO2 produced by a few billion people living in poverty in other countries who aspire to the western standard of living (and energy use) and are rapidly moving that way.
Thinking that CO2 growth can be suddenly reversed and moved back is a lost cause. We need to think more about how to deal with it.

On the ocean acidity topic, it may be the case that IF ocean acidity increases too quickly that marine organisms will have great difficulty in adapting. In my earlier post I only say that they DID adapt in past times, but we don’t have good data on how quickly.

Don, the problem, if there is one, is simplicity itself, we are now aware of changes in our environment. Self awareness along with man’s penchant for ascribing to himself or his actions more power than is warranted lead us wrongly. Human or animal sacrifices are along those lines, but are no different than asking the undeveloped economies to forego the advantages we have because the do-gooders say so.

The answer is also simplicity itself: let the markets work their magic. Let prices rise and fall as they will if left alone and as scarcity creeps upon us, new ways of doing things will evolve. Even now we become less dependent upon power by being more efficient. New ways of harvesting sunlight for power will become available.

Unfortunately those who deem man as evil incarnate, will advise us to hurry our demise before we ruin the planet.

Bah So I ask RossBrisbane and his supporters once again: Why do you want more ice and snow? Don’t we get enough already? With more ice and snow, we need more heat etc. There is not so much land for cultivation? Where, please tell me is the benefit of freezing?

You, Lewis are you trying to tell me that there will more snow and ice. That is complete nonsense. See the latest NASA satellite indicator of cloud and El Nino formation. IDENTICAL 3rd May 1997 and 3rd May 2014 give remarkable insight into how the earth has warmed. On the horizon is the BIGGEST El Nino since climate records began. Even surpassing the warmest year on RECORD! Please tell me benefits of a year hotter then 1997!

Your extremist free market ideology is utter bunk and is derived by rather century old and civilization focused centrist Theologians. They knew society and technology at that time in the 1800’s and developed the rationale of what you see in your countries economic system. It is outdated, strongly evangelical Protestant biased as to how economics should work. It is outdated as those of the free market doctrine never envisaged mankind being dislocated from the actual money supply and transaction is such a way as we do now. We badly need new economic doctrine for the development of national economies based on the real threat and over use of dwindling resources. WE need to embrace sustainability as our friend not our enemy. The doctrine of money has radically change in the coming half century. It will whether you like or not. It will collapse.

The next generation most likely are going really look upon this generation as clinging to the past climate as we knew it. The free market we worshiped as the false god of our deliverance. The free market for many is their god.

“The answer is also simplicity itself: let the markets work their magic. Let prices rise and fall as they will if left alone and as scarcity creeps upon us, new ways of doing things will evolve.”

I call the point-of-view that you express “market fundamentalism”. You believe in markets religiously, rather than having an understanding of when they actually work and when they fail. And, one place where they fail is when there are externalized costs that are not accounted for in the transaction between buyer and seller.

Yes, markets can do great things, but in order to do so, they need the correct price signals by having externalities corrected. And, a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system are ways to accomplish that. (Strangely enough, a lot of people who extol the virtues of the market are the same people who predict economic catastrophe if we actually correct these externalities. Apparently, their view of markets working is very situational.)

“Bah So I ask RossBrisbane and his supporters once again: Why do you want more ice and snow? Donít we get enough already?”

Alas, we … and lots of flora and fauna … are adapted to the current climates, current coastlines, etc. And, ice and snow are very important. For example, many places in both the developing and developed world rely heavily on melting winter snowpack or glacial ice to provide water during the warmer, drier times of the year. And, the flora and fauna are already stressed and have their habitat chopped up because of human development, making it difficult for them to adapt or move in response to climate changes.

Because of science, we have the ability to understand the effects that we are having on our environment and to mitigate the worst of these effects. It would be sad if a refusal to accept science that challenges certain ideological viewpoints led us to ignore the science.

The issue is that we humans have constructed a very large and complex society based on the environment being EXACTLY the way it is. If/when any part of that environment changes, it disturbs our society in some way. Of course constancy is not nature’s usual way. However, humans have been fortunate in that for about 10,000 years climate has been relatively constant, more so than in most comparable periods over the past million years. And now we may be perturbing that constancy, or perhaps nature is.

So do we panic, ignore it, or carefully and systematically understand the full issue and what is reasonable to do about it? I think an analogy can be made between the U.S. reaction to WWII and the conflict in Vietnam. Everyone in the US believed and pulled together in WWII and we achieved our goal. The country was strongly divided in Vietnam and it split our society to no good end.

“The issue is that we humans have constructed a very large and complex society based on the environment being EXACTLY the way it is.”

Sheer silliness. A complete infrastructure cycle is only around 50 years. Take a look at photos of any city line 30-50 years apart and the images are nearly unrecognizable. Perhaps a few buildings of historical importance, that is all.

The idea that human society is unchanging is part of this quasi religious belief system. Wal Mart is the world’s largest corporation (by revenue, half a trillion). It didn’t even exist in 1960.

The entire planet is going through radical change every day. A new technological break through, i.e., the mobile phone, radically transforms society in only a decade. Medical revolutions and social changes have massive implications everywhere. This is the actual world we live in. A radical revolution nearly on a daily basis.

By that standard, are not fossil fuels an embarrassing relic that are long past the point where they should have been replaced by a revolution in how we get our energy? Or, do you insist on clinging to policies that try desperately to prevent a revolution in energy technology from occurring?

What a bizarre statement. Not all things change rapidly simultaneously. The modern airliner has hardly changed in design since its inception. Improvements (such as more advanced electronics and composite materials) have been very gradual. Governments can’t simply “wish” one technology will replace another. (It’s worth remembering that massive programs such as Nixon’s “War on Cancer” were utter failures.) It will do so at some stage, and yes, fossil fuels will become obsolete, eventually. That could be decades or centuries away, however. When certain resources do become scares, they will be replaced eventually. It didn’t take massive government programs to switch people from horses to cars. And image what a failure it would have been if they’d tried that in 1910?

When I say “complex society based on the environment being EXACTLY the way it is” I don’t imply society does not change.
But we develop agriculture suitable for the particular climate, rain, plant-pests, etc. of a given region, and if that climate changes, that agriculture is disrupted.
We build cities near the sea, sometimes right at sea level, and if the seas rise or tropical storms intensify, those cities are imperiled.
We design our rainfall drainage systems to handle only a certain amount of rain, and if one-day rainfall increases (as it is), our homes are flooded.
The list is long.

But they can correct clear market failures that are preventing technologies such as fossil fuels from being priced properly because those who use fossil fuels are not directly paying for the negative effects. (Worse than that, there is actually heavy subsidization of fossil fuels by the government.)

“But they can correct clear market failures that are preventing technologies such as fossil fuels from being priced properly because those who use fossil fuels are not directly paying for the negative effects.”

“But we develop agriculture suitable for the particular climate, rain, plant-pests, etc. of a given region, and if that climate changes, that agriculture is disrupted.”

Of course it is. And changes have and will continue to occur with or without human influence. Different crops get grown, farms migrate to different regions. This has happened constantly throughout history.

“We build cities near the sea, sometimes right at sea level, and if the seas rise or tropical storms intensify, those cities are imperiled.”

I already explained to you that a complete infrastructure cycle is only 30-50 years. If a structure is “imperiled” it will be moved somewhere else. This has happened throughout history also and continues to happen.

“We design our rainfall drainage systems to handle only a certain amount of rain, and if one-day rainfall increases (as it is), our homes are flooded.
The list is long.”

Drainage, electricity, roads… all these get upgraded over time. Even without changing climates they age and must be replaced anyway.

Computer simulations (yes, them again) show the sea level rising one (ONE) inch (INCH) during the next hundred (HUNDRED) years (YEARS) from this cause. Or perhaps not rising at all, on the lowest-melt simulation.

Bernie & Dickie,
Investigators seem to agree that the direct, immediate cause of ice melting is upwelling, warmer sea water causing melting from beneath. Previous papers have expressed concern with the large Filchner-Ronne ice field (which faces the Atlantic Ocean), which along with the Ross ice field (above McMurdo) drain most of west Antarctica. The F-R ice rests on the sea bottom below sea level, which anchors it. As it retreats shoreward, it moves into a deeper ocean basin, where its erosion can occur more rapidly. Once not firmly anchored, the whole ice mass can move down-slope more rapidly.

The timing of such collapse (assuming it occurs) cannot be determined because of the many unknown factors involved. The authors of the paper suggest 2 centuries, but it is very uncertain.

Several estimates of current and recent past amounts of sea level rise are around 1 inch per decade, or 10″ per century. Most societies should be able to handle that. The greater concern is over possible significant increase in the ice loss rate (as above).
The question is how much effort and pain should society willingly adopt now in order to MAYBE avoid a flooding danger that MAY occur in the far future.
I have no answer.

As a geologist specialising in the detail of marine sedimentation, I can tell you that the record in the rocks shows that the general sea-level has fluctuated rapidly (on the sort of time scale we rock-hounds like), quite literally, TENS OF THOUSANDS of times. It is actually a bit boring. The Sea comes up a few meters, the Sea goes down a few meters. So far, it hasn’t destroyed life. Nor has this morning’s tide, outside my window. The water actually came up ten meters, just like that! Good thing I am not so stupid as to live a mile further out in the bay.

One of the greatest denials that liberals make is that Nuclear power is safe and that radiation is extremely safe below about 100 rem / month. This feeds their desire to make energy expensive by making Nuclear power nearly impossible to build. The concept that there is no safe level of radiation is simply false.http://radiationandreason.com/

In fact there is evidence that lower levels of radiation might be helpful.